Laurice Bell, Henry Duarte and Christine Nichols
Photo: David Crotty

Re: PRESENT ~ LACE ANNUAL BENEFIT ART AUCTION
A celebration of the moment
Representing three decades of excellence with a toast to the future!

Photo: David Crotty

This year LACE’s Annual Benefit Art Auction on Thursday, May 22, 2008 celebrated our 30th anniversary. With Ann Magnuson as our MC, Re:PRESENT featured both silent and live auctions and special entertainment to link LACE’s historical foundations with the exciting new cultural production abounding in our city right now.

Barbara T. Smith, Phranc and Suzanne Lacy
Photo: David Crotty

Since 1978, LACE has had a simple mandate – to enrich the cultural landscape of Los Angeles and contribute to global culture. In the last thirty years LACE has commissioned and presented the works of over 5,000 artists and has worked with artistic pioneers such as Laurie Anderson, Chris Burden, Mike Kelley, Suzanne Lacy and Bruce and Norman Yonemoto. We have become a force in the community and remain committed to championing the role of the artist as an agent for positive change. All Re: PRESENT proceeds ensure that we continue to deliver a safe haven that allows for both emergent and established artists to push boundaries, expand the definition of contemporary art practices and inspire the public imagination.

Christopher Russell, Carol Stakenas, Will Schwartz and Daniela Sea
Photo: David Crotty

Photo credit: Sari Roden

ALLAN KAPROW 18 HAPPENINGS IN 6 PARTS

LACE was proud to present a re-invention of Allan Kaprow’s seminal Happening –18 Happenings in 6 Parts – originally presented in 1959 at the Reuben Gallery in New York. The original work featured a cast of performers including Allan Kaprow, with Rosalyn Montague, Shirley Prendergast, Lucas Samaras, Janet Weinberger, Robert Whitman, Sam Francis, Red Grooms, Dick Higgins, George Segal, and others.

To re-invent this work in 2008, LACE invited artist Steve Roden to assemble a creative team, which includes Rae Shao-Lan Blum, Michael Ned Holte and Stephanie Smith. The team is joined by performers Simone Forti, Steve Irvin, Flora Wiegmann with Elonda Billera and Skylar Haskard creating key props and installations. Special guests will join the performance each night including Roy Dowell, Renee Petropoulos, Justin Lowman, Elizabeth Leister, Fran Siegel, Brad Eberhard, Mark Dutcher, Doug Harvey, Steve DeGroodt, David McDonald, and Martin Kersels.

This new vision of the work is grounded in the team’s intensive research and dialogue, based on Kaprow’s original notes and writings.  “I’d like to be sure that Kaprow’s intentions and ideas surrounding the work are not lost in attempts to replicate a historical moment.” (Steve Roden)

Photo credit: Sari Roden

Allan Kaprow 18 Happenings in 6 Parts was timed to coincide withthe exhibition Allan Kaprow—Art as Life, on view at the Geffen Contemporary at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA through June 30, 2008, and organized by the Haus der Kunst Munich, and  the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. The curatorial concept for this exhibition was developed in close collaboration with the recently deceased artist, and curators Stephanie Rosenthal (Munich) and Eva Meyer-Hermann (Eindhoven).

One aspect of this large-scale retrospective is the re-invention of many of Kaprow’s Happenings, which will take place at 29 local institutions throughout Southern California. Thanks to a generous grant from the Getty Foundation, MOCA has invited Los Angeles-area art schools, academic institutions, arts organizations, museums, and artist-run spaces to reinvent a diverse selection of Kaprow’s Happenings.

Happenings are coordinated by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and made possible by generous support from the Getty Foundation. Allan Kaprow—Art as Life is organized by the Haus der Kunst, Munich, and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. Concept of the exhibition by Stephanie Rosenthal and Eva Meyer-Hermann. For a complete listing of all Happenings, visit www.moca.org/kaprow

Special thanks to the Allan Kaprow Estate, Hauser & Wirth Zürich London, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California (980063).

International Pop Affair
led by Rafa Saavedra
LACE Listening Party, V.3

EL DOWNLOAD ES CULTURA

International Pop Affair was a sonic trip for the post-myspace generation from Tijuana to Sweden and beyond led by Rafa Saavedra,Tijuana's top word-sound guru...blogger, DJ, critic, twitter scribe, author of the fiction collections Lejos del Noise, Buten Smileys, and Esto No Es Una Salida.
He chronicles the global "snobground" on his blog http://crossfadernetwork.blogspot.com/

UP NEXT: Sept 16: Alejandro Cohen -- "The Paisley Underground"

Other RECENT LPs

DETROIT with RJ SMITH, April 1, 2008
A LACE Listening PartY

Pondered: What is the fate of a great American city?
What’s new to say about Motown?
How does one achieve membership card in the Midnight Funk Association?
What does muskrat really taste like?
These questions and more answered.

For the Listening Party on April 1, RJ Smith expertly led a wander through Detroit's musical (and political) history. Smith is the author of The Great Black Way: LA in the 1940s and the Lost African American Renaissance and is a Senior Editor at Los Angeles Magazine. He is currently writing a biography of James Brown.

SUBURBS with KAREN TONGSON, MARCH 4, 2008
A LACE Listening PartY

Karen Tongson is an English and Gender Studies professor at USC.  She is currently at work on a book title RELOCATIONS about race and sexuality in the southern California suburbs (for NYU Press).  The project’s scraps can be found on Inland Emperor .  She is also a co-founder (with Christine Balance and Alexandra Vazquez) of the popblog Oh! Industry.

Listening Parties are interactive public conversations curated by Josh Kun are inspired by the current explosion of mp3 players, podcasts and other mobile media, that are used to score the soundtrack of everyday life. Each Party will feature special guest critics, musicians and curators who will share favorite recordings - from popular anthems to found sounds and new material - to serve as the impetus for this series of wide-ranging discussions about urban space and music. Party hosts will design her/his listening experience to shape how the music is encountered and to break down a traditional panel format.

Josh Kun (PhD, Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley) is an Associate Professor in the Annenberg School of Communication and affiliated faculty with the Program in American Studies and Ethnicity. Prior to joining the USC Annenberg school, Josh Kun was Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America (UC Press) which won a 2006 American Book Award. His articles on popular music, the pop cultures of the US-Mexico border, and the music of Los Angeles have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and anthologies. He is director of The Popular Music Project at USC Annenberg's The Norman Lear Center.

Image: Wendy Mason and Mindy Rose Schwartz, 2008

overlooker
collaboration by Wendy Mason and Mindy Rose Schwartz

Opening Reception February 26 6 - 8pm followed by a
Video Screening curated by ART OFFICE and Slab
Screening time 8 - 9pm

Wendy Mason and Mindy Rose Schwartz explore their mutual interest in
how objects and spaces hold the history of human interactions and the
physical and ephemeral traces of their use.

Using macramé as an intervention device, Schwartz will un earth
objects found within LACE and LACE'S archive, binding a hybrid of
forms to the architecture. Mason will show a video of a plywood
octagon that colors the air in a room while also being unhinged from
the physicality of its location. Both works acknowledge the unseen as
integral to fully understanding a place as a whole.

Together their work, as the title suggests, points to a fullness that
occurs inside of a space that extends beyond the structure of what is
meant to contain it. The natural organization of objects and meaning
is changed when what is normally hidden is revealed.

Artist's websites:
www.wendymason.org
www.mindyroseschwartz.com

overlooker is part of Street Address, an ongoing storefront series at LACE
that offers a 24/7 art experience to Hollywood Boulevard passersby.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Download Press Release

REALITY TESTING
organized by ART OFFICE and Slab

*This one night only screening will take place in conjunction with the opening reception of the overlooker exhibition at LACE. The opening reception for overlooker starts 6pm. ART OFFICE and Slab will present Reality Testing 8pm.

ART OFFICE and Slab, two artist-run collaborative projects join together to present a 60-minute screening of contemporary video work by local, national, and international artists. The videos in this program explore how realities are tested through representation, physical configuration, creative desire, and potential failures.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Julia Brown
Kim Collmer
Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby
Lyn Elliot
Peter Harkawik
Jon Irving
Lauren Kelley
Jennifer Levonian
TV Moore
Shana Moulton
Corinna Schnitt


ABOUT ART OFFICE
As an ongoing platform for critical investigations and artistic projects, ART OFFICE for Film + Video actively seeks, promotes and presents contemporary video and film in art contexts. Founded by artists and CalArts alums Victoria Fu, Julie Orser and Jennifer L. Porter, ART OFFICE was formed to expand both emerging and established artists working in time-based media in the Los Angeles area.
http://www.artoffice.org/

ABOUT SLAB
Slab is an exhibition method founded by Los Angles-based artist Wendy Mason and Houston-based curator Nancy Zastudil. Enacted in unexpected locations, Slab functions as a platform for artists' works, including solo, group and collaborative projects. We consider the transitory roles of artists and curators while aiming to facilitate artist's projects and events, exploring the fun and experimental nature of creative activity.
http://www.slabprojects.com

LEARNING FROM THE BILBAO GUGGENHEIM
(Center for Basque Studies Conference Papers) University of Nevada, Reno, 2005.
Anna Maria Guasch and Joseba Zulaika, editors.

INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE AND AFTER (SoCCAS series vol. II)
JRP|Ringier, 2006, John C. Welchman, editor.

A BOOK LAUNCH AND PANEL DISCUSSION

Introductions by:
John Welchman, University of California, San Diego, Chair SoCCAS [Southern California Consortium of Art Schools]
Joseba Zulaika, Director, Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno

Followed by a panel discussion with:
Andrea Fraser, UCLA, Artist and author of Museum Highlights: The Writings of Andrea Fraser (MIT, 2005)
Anna Maria Guasch, University of Barcelona, Author of El Arte Ultimo del Siglo XX: Del Postminimalism a lo Multicultural (2003)
Serge Guilbaut, University of British Columbia, Author of How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art (Chicago, 1983)
Allan Sekula, Cal Arts, Artist and author of Photography Against the Grain (NSCAD, 1979)

Learning from the Bilbao Guggenheim
Hailed as an "Instant landmark," Frank Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim brought a new sense of relevance to architecture in the transformation of urban landscapes. Gehry's optimistic artichoke set amid Bilbao's postindustrial ruins has become an icon of what architecture can do for a city decline. As a result, every city has dreamed of its own Guggenheim. Eleven years have already passed since the momentous apparition and the time seems ripe to reflect critically on the influence of the Guggenheim on the world of art, architecture, museums, and urban renewal. What can we learn from the Guggenheim effect?
Contributors: Beatriz Colomina, Lucy Lippard, Ery Camera, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Allan Sekula, Anna Maria Guasch, John C Welchman, Joseba Zulaika, Andrea Fraser, Jon Azua, Javier Viar, Hans Haacke, Muntadas, Dean MacCannell, Keith Moxey.

Institutional Critique and After
The anthology explores the history and contemporary reassessment of Institutional Critique, launched (but not yet so-named) in the late 1960s by artists including Marcel Broodthaers and Daniel Buren in Europe and Michael Asher and Hans Haacke in the US. In the aftermath of a movement that commenced nearly four decades ago, how have its leading concepts, assumptions, and tactics developed, especially as many of them can no longer be considered as radical or adversarial as they might have been in the late 1960s? Have the demographics and cultural politics of the museum and gallery sectors also shifted in the last few decades, in response—or otherwise—to Institutional Critique itself? Have the locations (pre-eminently museums and exhibition spaces) that were once the objects of critique emerged in more recent generations as objects of desire, or even fetishism?
Contributors: John Searle, Hans Haacke, Alexander Alberro, Maria Eichhorn, Andrea Fraser, Isabelle Graw, Martin Sastre, Renee Green, Ricardo Dominguez, Lynn Zelevansky, Monica Bonvicini, Christiane Paul, The Guerilla Girls, Juli Carson, Javier Tellez, Astrid Mania, Amy Pederson, The Yes Men, Lauri Firstenberg, Jens Hoffmann, Mike Kelley, John C. Welchman and Ricardo Dominguez.

Special thanks to SoCCAS and the Woodbury University for Community Research and Design for their help in hosting this event.

Brenton Maart, Factory Crossword, 2008

On the Risk of Others
The Photosyntax of Brenton Maart
Curated by Ultra-red

In recent years Ultra-red has joined with community groups in multiple cities in the U.S. and Canada to explore strategies for collective organizing around the AIDS epidemic. They have held these events in art museums, galleries and art schools in order to investigate the potential role such institutions may play in local efforts to address the crisis. LACE has hosted Ultra-red on a number of occasions in its development of these projects and in doing so has participated actively in our investigations. The collaboration between LACE and Ultra-red on this exhibition of works by Brenton Maart marks a significant step in this institutional analysis.

Brenton Maart, a South African gay man of mixed racial heritage, was born and raised when the Apartheid regime was in power. Consequently, he is intimately acquainted with how state regulation of race and sexuality shapes intimate emotional, psychological and physical experiences. In the post-Apartheid era he and other artists of his and earlier generations, such as Bernie Searle, Anton Kannemeyer, Zanele Muholi, Conrad Botes, Diane Victor, and Nicholas Hlobo, have begun investigating the desires, hopes, histories and practices that define the contemporary sphere of sexuality in South Africa. This work inventories the ideological practices that shape how South Africans imagine and re-imagine themselves. While the trajectories they follow may be particular to South Africa, they are nevertheless resonant with comparable efforts in the United States.

Acknowledgement: Maart’s artwork, Factory Crossword, was commissioned for Make Art/Stop AIDS, an exhibition of HIV/AIDS related art work from the United States, South Africa, Brazil and India. The exhibition, scheduled to travel to venues in each of the participating countries, is having its first showing at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles (February 23 – June 15, 2008). Concerned that Maart's work would present a barrier to the attendance of school groups to the exhibition—a target audience—the Fowler was hopeful it might be presented elsewhere in Los Angeles. Fortunately, LACE offered to show the piece, along with other works by Brenton Maart. The Fowler has generously sponsored this exhibition by providing financial and logistical support.

Related Public Programs

Thursday, February 28, 7 - 9 pm
PNP:  Party n Plays
AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) presents an evening of theater on gay men and substance use. Whether the substance is love and friendship, meth or pot, we invite the greater Los Angeles communities to join in an evening of fine artistic work and substantive discussion on the perils and pleasures inherent in the volatile mix of masculinity, lust and drugs.  Featuring staged readings of excerpts from:  Circuitry by Andrew Barrett; Porridge by Brian Bauman; A Writer & His History by Ricardo A. Bracho; Meth’ed to Madness by Anthony Breen; I Am Derek Jackson by Derek Jackson; (e)vaporate. by Christopher Oscar Pena; and INHALE/EXHALE by Robert Sanchez.  Dramaturgy and Direction by Ricardo A. Bracho. Produced by Patrick “Pato” Hebert, Associate Director of Education, APLA. Free and open to all publics.

Saturday, March 1, 2 – 6pm followed by a reception
THE EPIDEMIC IS STILL BEGINNING:
Sexuality, Representation and HIV Prevention Justice

A public forum organized by Ultra-red and CHAMP on the occasion of South African photographer, Brenton Maart's exhibition On the Risk of Others at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions).

Presented in cooperation with the exhibition MAKE ART / STOP AIDS at the UCLA Fowler Museum.

SESSION ONE: INSITITUTIONS AT RISK (Cultural Institutions and the AIDS Crisis)
2:00pm to 3:45pm

Panelists: Marla Berns, Director, Fowler Museum, UCLA
Carol Stakenas, Director, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
Alexandra Juhasz, Professor of Media Studies, Pitzer College
Simon Leung, Associate Professor of Studio Art, UC Riverside

Moderator: Robert Sember, Ultra-red

The Marxists philosopher Louis Althusser has suggested that the ideology of the dominant class is manifest in the practices of civic institutions, including museums, galleries, schools and non-governmental service organizations. Struggles for financial security, status and audience are among the ways in which these institutions engage with systems of power and measure success—they usually depend on State, philanthropic organizations and wealthy individuals for money; adhere to standards established by the market or an elite group of critics and scholars; and, serve the interests of core patrons. While these mechanisms help determine institutional practices, they also provide points for critical engagement. The discussion, Institutions at Risk, will examine these ideological systems in light of the AIDS epidemic and other crises. It is often at points of crisis that institutional mechanisms are most emphatically enforced and are thus momentarily visible. The discussion will focus on how art institutions and art professionals define and practice their "civic mandates." The panelists will have an opportunity to reflect on how they negotiate their various roles as curators, administrators, teachers, artists and activists within institutional contexts and to discuss with audience members examples of contemporary and historic exhibitions, and art works events and practices that illustrate how institutions function at moments of risk.

BREAK: 3:45pm to 4:15pm

SESSION TWO: ACTS OF SOLIDARITY (Prevention Justice and the Administration of Crisis)
4:15pm to 6:00pm

Panelists: Darrell Cummings, Gay and Lesbian Center
Rosemary Candelario, Department of World Arts and Cultures, UCLA
Gina Lamb, REACH
Richard Hamilton, CHAMP
Robert Sember, Ultra-red

Moderator: Walt Senterfitt, CHAMP

The dominant public health approach to HIV-prevention in the United States emphasizes behavior change and individual responsibility. The terms of analysis used to support this approach consist of clearly defined risk groups (men-who-have-sex-with-men, injecting drug users, commercial sex workers) and discrete risk practices (unprotected anal and vaginal sex, needle sharing). The resulting interventions do little to connect the members of these risk groups to the political and economic contexts in which they live. Most activist and community-based groups, however, have emphasized how structural or social factors produce individual and collective vulnerability to HIV-infection. These factors include income disparities, discrimination, prejudice and lack of access to prevention information and technologies. As the epidemic grows and the limits of dominant public health models become clear, increasing numbers of public health workers are focusing on factors that define risk contexts and conditions such as poverty, gender oppression and religious fundamentalism. Advocates of this approach have called for a social justice-based approach to HIV-prevention and strengthening the lines of solidarity that connect HIV activism to a variety of other social movements, including immigrant rights, the women's movement, environmental activism and anti-globalization movements. A core practice of these coalitions is the analysis of institutions and the roles they play in facilitating or frustrating the expansion of social justice causes. Art institutions and practices were once key venues for critique, learning and organizing. In the discussion, Acts of Solidarity, we will examine the key principles of the prevention justice movement and what may follow from engagements between it and members of the art world.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Download Press Release

Cosmo Segurson (video still), 2008

BUMP:
Recent and Rarely Seen Explicit Videos from Southern California Artists
debuted at Lust 4 LACE

This bold collection of explicit videos explores issues of the perverse and provocative, challenging many preconceptions about sexuality and desire. Whether focusing on intimacy, the sex act itself or a sense of playfulness - these unabashed explorations of the human condition transcend gender and go beyond the purely pornographic. As a whole, the explicit nature of these works is more about stripping away layers of convention, rather than just clothing.

Featuring brand new and rarely seen explicit videos and performances from Southern California artists including: Buck Angel, Skip Arnold, Jordan Biren, Squeaky Blonde, David Burns, Peter Caine, Franco Castilla, Mark B. Chamness, Charong Chow, Jennifer Cohen, Geoff Cordner, Michael Dee, Dino Dinco, Willia Drew, Zachary Drucker, Martin Durazo, Micol Hebron, Tyler Hubby, Bryan Jackson, Kadet Kuhne, Darin Klein, Lauren Lavitt, Matt Lipps, Selene Luna, Ming-Yuen S. Ma, Eon McKai, Julie Orser, Julianna (JP) Parr, Kathryne Layne Paxton, Barry Pett, Eva Posey, Dustin Robertson, Margie Schnibbe, Mark Cosmo Segurson, Thairin Smothers, Vena Virago, Austin Young, Carlos Zamora, and more.

Organized by David Burns and Margie Schnibbe, BUMP was inspired by a series of explicit video programs organized by Bruce Yonemoto in the early 1980’s.

Photo credit: Margie Schnibbe

LACE'S INFAMOUS VALENTINE'S DAY PARTY IS BACK!

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions celebrated the grand tradition of VALENTINE's day from years past with, good friends, random lovers, and strangers and to kick off our 30th anniversary in style!

Organized by artists David Burns and Margie Schnibbe (aka Vena Virago) with Peter Bolton & Carla Hart, Franco Castilla, Lenora Claire, Chad Clark, Robert Crouch, Christine Nichols and Carol Stakenas, Lust 4 LACE celebrates the grand tradition of years past and all manner of delightful debauchery by creating a night featuring explicit, naked, juicy, tasty, slippery, slimy, crunchy, gooey, sexy, voyeuristic, fetishistic live action animated narrative squishy hand-made video, live art and musical performance--DJ sets by John Tejada, Henry Self and Robert Crouch--not to mention kinky crafts with JP Craft Captain sponsored by Babeland and delectable libations by Stone Brewing Co.

Featuring brand new and rarely seen explicit videos and performances from Southern California artists including: Buck Angel, Skip Arnold, Jordan Biren, Squeaky Blonde, David Burns, Peter Caine, Franco Castilla, Mark B. Chamness, Charong Chow, Jennifer Cohen, Geoff Cordner, Michael Dee, Dino Dinco, Willia Drew, Zachary Drucker, Martin Durazo, Micol Hebron, Tyler Hubby, Bryan Jackson, Kadet Kuhne, Darin Klein, Lauren Lavitt, Matt Lipps, Selene Luna, Ming-Yuen S. Ma, Eon McKai, Julie Orser, Julianna (JP) Parr, Kathryne Layne Paxton, Barry Pett, Eva Posey, Dustin Robertson, Margie Schnibbe, Mark Cosmo Segurson, Thairin Smothers, Vena Virago, Austin Young, Carlos Zamora, and more.

Photo credits: (l - r) Lynda Burdick, Margie Schnibbe, Lynda Burdick

LUST 4 LACE part of the LACE LIVE! commissioning series. Throughout 2008 LACE is developing projects to celebrate LACE’s rich history, inspire heightened usage of its archival holdings, promote exploration of contemporary art in Los Angeles since 1978.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Be our MYSPACE valentine!!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Download Press Release here.

Photo: Camilo Ontiveros and Felipe Zuniga, 2008

EL CUBO (Cube)
Collective project by Camilo Ontiveros and Felipe Zuniga

Cube explores notions of social architecture through a transportable sound sculpture
whose sound track responds to site-specific locations.

Cube is a transformable object that articulates experiences in its interior and its exterior.  Cube exist thanks to the conjunctional initiative of different creators with the goal of provoking the irruption of different sonorous gradients, incessant voices, emiferal chronics and ambiental episodes in the city .

Unstable, Cube unfolds and loses its defined limits only to replicate the extreme growth from the surroundings to which it tries to echo. Constructed of wastes, signs of the consumption economy, Cube is a kamikaze version of its neutral and white predecessor.

Cube unfolds its aesthetic potential in concrete spaces as much as imaginary; it is drop-down architecture, a sonorous intervention in the noise of the city, a specific-social cartography that projects to the public, between the public, towards the public.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Listen to LARADIOCUBO

El Cubo is part of Street Address, an ongoing storefront series at LACE
that offers a 24/7 art experience to Hollywood Boulevard passersby.

Christine Nichols, Maynard Monrow and Linda Taalman join Hit + Run for LACE LIVE! DIY T-shirts.
Photos: Joshua White

LACE LIVE! DIY T-shirts with Hit+Run

LACE kicked off the year at ART LA 2008 with a special 30th anniversary celebration! HIT+RUN was invited to explore LACE's archives and select imagery to reflect their long history of supporting experimental art. HIT+RUN is proud to celebrate this vital Los Angeles art institution, and we invite you to a live screenprinting session this Saturday, January 26th in Santa Monica. Each person got to choose from exclusive designs, featuring moments in LACE history with Mike Kelley, Dorit Cypis, Tony Oursler, Frederick Fisher, Highland Art Agents and HIT+RUN, to create their own FREE commemorative LACE T-shirt! Organized by Christine Nichols, Special Projects Director.

DIY T-shirts is the first LACE LIVE! commission. Throughout 2008 LACE is developing projects to celebrate LACE’s rich history, inspire heightened usage of its archival holdings, promote exploration of contemporary art in Los Angeles since 1978.

Hit + Run at art la 2008. Photo: Franco Castilla

Amy Casillas and Vincent Ruiz Abogado walk for LACE

LACE 10K
The first LACE 10K, a sponsored art walk, took place on Saturday, September 29. A dedicated band of LACE 10K Walkers hit the pavement and raised $6,000 for LACE programs and explore the art community in Los Angeles together.

LACE 10K Walkers proved that there is more to see in L.A. than what is in your rear view mirror  by walking 6.5 miles and exploring more than 40 local art galleries along the route.  There was lunch and a few surprises along the way, not to mention plenty of art.  The walk concluded with a finish line party at LACE (6522 Hollywood Blvd) beginning at 5pm.

Each Walker was required to sign up 10 sponsors.  The cost to sponsor is $50 and each sponsor received a membership to LACE with benefits including advance notice of exhibitions & special events, free admission to the galleries & free/reduced admission to special programs. 

By participating in the LACE 10K, you help build the foundation on which to achieve the next three decades of challenging and unique programming at LACE. To become a LACE 10K Walker for 2008 simply open the attached packet, fill out the participation form and return it to LACE by fax 323.957.9025 or email:  administration@artleak.org. Click here for the LACE 10K packet.

LACE 10K was conceived and produced by Vincent Ruiz-Abogado with support from fellow LACE Board members, Chad Clark, Grace Kim and David Richards.

The Black Sea Files, Ursula Biemann. Photo: Nicholas Brown

JUST SPACE(S)
Opening reception: Wednesday 26 September 7 - 9 p.m.

From our neighborhoods and parks, to our prisons, pipelines and national borders, physical space is defined by social constructions.  With such recent events as Hurricane Katrina, controversy over immigration reform and the realized effects of global warming, it is more than evident that many of these spaces are failing their inhabitants. In this exhibition and programming series, artists, scholars and activists reveal how these spaces function, and where they stop short– making way for thought and action to create justice in societies and spaces.

Just Space(s) aims not merely to show what is unjust about our world, but to inspire visitors to consider what the active production of just space(s) might entail. It asks a crucial question: How do we move from injustice to justice at the level of the body, the home, the street corner, the city, the region, the network, the supranational trade agreement and every space within, between, and beyond?

Through the lens of conceptual and physical landscapes, the artists and activists of Just Space(s) explore themes of prison reform, immigration and labor, economic inequality, environmentalism, race, and indigenous rights.

Furthermore, this exhibition will blur the distinction between art, education, and activism. A library/infoshop and symposia and event series extend the scope and scale of the main exhibition. By transforming LACE, in part, into an active learning environment, Just Space(s) seek to provide visitors with tools to consider alternatives to the current social and political discourses that dominate and constrain our conceptions of space and justice.

For more information and programming schedule visit: www.justspaces.org

Click here for the press release.

Ashley Hunt (map detail)

AN ATLAS
Opening reception: Wednesday 26 September 7 - 9 p.m.

An Atlas is a traveling exhibition of artists working with “radical cartography”—a practice that uses maps and mapping to promote social change. The 10 participating artists, architects, and collectives take on issues from globalization to garbage and explore the map’s role as a political agent. The exhibition and accompanying catalog contribute to a growing cultural movement that cuts across boundaries of art, cartography, geography, and activism.  It is a companion exhibition to the publication, “An Atlas of Radical Cartography," (upcoming Fall 2007, Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press, Los Angeles.) 

Works include Ashley Hunt’s intricate diagram of the social effects of the global prison-industrial complex; the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s mapping of the people who make and manage the “garbage machine” in New York City; Jane Tsong’s drawing of how nature and culture clash in Los Angeles’ watershed; and Trevor Paglen and John Emerson’s route map of CIA rendition flights.

AN ATLAS CONTRIBUTORS

An Atlas is made possible in part by a grant from the LEF Foundation, and is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts. For more information, please visit www.an-atlas.com

Click here for the press release.

Out Side In
On view: 29 August - 9 September 2007

OUT SIDE IN is an exhibition of artwork by 2007 MFA graduates from the University of California, Irvine, presented at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). The aesthetic and intellectual interests of this group are varied and expressed using video, photography, painting, drawing, installation, sculpture and performance. The navigation of sites and space is considered in works addressing the militarized landscape, Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion map of the earth, sites of historical trauma, and the everchanging neighborhood where LACE is located. Other artists explore the body and interpersonal relationships. Figures pose in lushly constructed paper rooms, a woman interacts with images of deceased artists, and animated bodies engage with each other in intimate and awkward ways. Others use criticality and humor to expose Dr. Condoleezza Rice, stereotypes of Japanese femininity, and the vagaries of political speech.

The exhibition's title alludes to the various positions and dynamics at play in political, philosophical, geographic, bodily, and emotional states of being. It refers to a fluidity of perspective and the artists' multiple attempts to upset the familiar and re-route its meaning through skillful and thoughtful manipulations of their chosen media. With equal doses of wit, analysis, poetry, and attention to craft, the work in this exhibition exemplifies the diverse influences of the institution where these artists met.

The artists featured are Dan Bayles, Douglas Green, Anna Kim, Lara Odell, Gina Osterloh, Jeff Sheng, Kristine Thompson, Lisa Tucker (collaborating with Matthew Bryant and Cheryl Gilge), Gordon Winiemko, and Chie Yamayoshi. A limited-edition publication will accompany the exhibition.

Click here for the press release.

Click here for more information.

Lucci and Remedios, the Squirrel Cub on the Karaoke Ice tour
Watts Tower Art Center. Photo: Nancy Nowacek

Karaoke Ice
Designed by Nancy Nowacek, Katie Salen and Marina Zurkow

This public art project, an ice cream truck-turned-mobile-karaoke-unit, was deployed throughout Los Angeles to unite people in a collective quest to perform and record new versions of pop songs using the vernacular of ice cream truck music. Karaoke Ice introduced people to the playful ways in which technology can be used to give voice to personal and collective concerns, as well as enable meaningful social interaction between groups, both large and small.

Click here for the press release.

Click here for more information.

The Tour
Breaking out from its LACE Hollywood headquarters, the Karaoke Ice tour will visit an array of distinct neighborhoods across Los Angeles. Lucci and Remedios will make daytime and evening appearances at a variety of public spaces that encourage social gathering. Come and join the tour and rediscover Los Angeles through Karaoke! Click here for a more detailed schedule.